OUR STORY
Slavery and the Codringtons in Antigua/Barbuda

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A tall woman carrying a lamp, beautifully, yet with an air that chills the blood of those who see her, has appeared near Parham Lodge from time to time since the 1600’s often vanishing in a ball of fire.

In the 1860’s, a man named John Freeland began collecting stories from people in Parham who had seen the ghost, for that is what she is. He wrote them down for posterity.

The stories begin in 1656, with Patrick Rumsey, an Irishman who had come to the West Indies to seek his fortune. He and his wife, Sarah, and their small daughter lived at Parham Lodge, and he persuaded his uncle, Tom Flynn, a rich bachelor, to leave his Galway farm and come to live with them.

Flynn sailed on the Cormorannt, bound for St. Kitts, and the captain agreed to drop him at the north coast of Antigua. Flynn sold all his belongings and converted the proceeds – 8,000 pounds – into gold and silver pieces, which he packed in an oak trunk bound with iron.

After 10 weeks he arrived and was warmly greeted by the Rumseys. Sarah Rumsey was a beautiful woman who seemed “as gentle as a dove,” but underneath was “a schemer who valued wealth above all else.” When Flynn innocently described his fortune, she determined to have it.

A few days after he arrived, Flynn fell ill with a fever. Sarah Rumsey saw her chances. Each day she mixed the seeds of the poisonous fatiopha Plant with his food, and on the fifth day, he died.

Sarah Rumsey could not move his heavy trunk, so she asked her unsuspecting husband to keep the dead man’s effects where they were “until his soul finds a resting place.”

Every day, she would take a small parcel out to an uninhabited dwelling near the lodge, until, finally, the entire 8,000 pounds of gold and silver had been moved. She showed her husband the empty trunk and declared that the dead had somehow hidden the money.

But fate intervened. Less than four months after the last parcel had been hidden, Parham lodge caught fire, and Sarah Rumsey was burned to death in the very room in which she had poisoned Tom Flynn.

Since then, her ghost has been seen from time to time, even in broad daylight, when it floats like a discoloured sunbeam on the haunted road between Parham Lodge and Crabbs.

In the moonlight, it is clearly the figure of a woman. She enters the Lodge by one door and goes out the opposite side. She carries a lighted lamp on which the figures 8, 9, 1 and 6 usually appear, but rarely in the same order.

People in Parham say that the spirit must wonder for 500 years or until the spell is broken. This can happen only if two happy brides simultaneously come to live at the house at each end of the haunted road. Their arrival would be foretold by a female descendent of the wicked woman.

In 1863, Colonel B. told Mr. Freeland that as a young man, he had wanted to find out if the ghost were true. He cantered to Parham on a bright moonlight night, and rode back and forth between the Lodge and Crabbs. He was ready to give up when his horse, Eclipse, bounded to one side, plunged violently, trembled all over, and groaned as if in pain.

A beautiful woman appeared, holding a lamp which gave out a dazzling light. The lamp bore the number 1, 6, 9, and 8. The figure walked toward the Lodge, beckoning the young man to follow.

When he reached there, the figure was standing at the door. Suddenly, there was a fearful scream. The Lantern turned into a huge ball of fire, and the figure and the fire passed through the wooden shutter.

The next day, the young man went back and found that the shutter was made of plunks and heavily bolted, and the windows were tightly fastened. No human figure could have passed through.

In 1889, L.R. told Mr. Freeland that he had once lived in the haunted Lodge. About a week after he moved in, he spent the evening writing letters, and then got up to close the door. He stepped outside to roll away the stone that was holding the door against the house. When he put his fingers behind the door, icy fingers grasped his hand.

Another time, as he walked into his bedroom one afternoon, he heard a noise “like brambles burning.” There, on the floor, was a ball of fire a food in diameter. The floor did not seem to be getting charred, so he reached down to feel if it were hot. At that moment, there was a sound “like the discharge of a rocket” and the ball of fire vanished.

On another day he looked into his drawing room and saw a tall, handsome woman, “composed as of steam”. She had a lamp in one hand and the figure 9, 1, 6 and 8 in the other. She walked in the south door and out the north door. L.R. said that both doors were securely fastened, “and I was sober”.

On still another day, he came home at 1 O’clock for dinner and saw a tall “book-case”, a sort of writing desk, standing in place of his own furnishings. In front of it was a tall man with his back pointing to the writing on the paper. A “handsome lady” was pointing to the writing on the paper, and in her other hand, holding a lantern with the figures 1, 6, 9, and 8.

Bewildered, he asked his servant “who are these people”. At that moment, the book-case and the people disappeared with a noise “like cats and dogs scampering across the floor”. The servant told him that the people came there frequently and were constantly reading and writing, and that they bought their own book-case, since there was none in the house.

In 1895, J.F. told Mr. Freeland that 29 years earlier, in 1866, as he was riding home one night, a beautiful woman appeared in the road carrying a brilliant lamp bearing the numbers 6, 8, 9 and 1. He tried to speak or urge his horse forward but could not. The figure put her head inside his trap and said “seek her at the Rue de La Paix in Paris, and she will tell you all.”

J.F. had never been in Paris or heard of the Rue de La Paix. But by a strange chance, 16 years later, in 1882, he happened to be in Paris. He was riding on top of a “diligence” when he saw a pretty, delicate woman sitting across from him, carrying on a conversation. He thought he had seen her before, and she looked at him as if she recognized him.

Suddenly, the diligence turned over and the passengers were thrown into the road. J.F. rushed to the aid of the young woman, who whispered, “helped me to the hotel Normandie”.

J.F. took her to the hotel, promising to call the next day. As he left, he heard the young woman say to someone “it is he. We met in the Rue de La Paix.”

That night he was unable to sleep, thinking of the figure on the lonely West Indian road 16 years earlier.

The next day he went back to the hotel and met the young woman’s father who said that he had come to Paris because his daughter had had a revelation which involved the young man, and which told him to come to this street.

The daughter appeared. She said she had seen the young man in a hypnotic trance and had concentrated her will to draw him to her in Paris.

She said she was the descendant of “a woman who sold her soul to demons for the lust of gold”, and that heaven had decreed that her ancestor wonder day and night, “until two maidens pure come as brides and occupy the houses at the ends of the haunted road.”

She said she had dreamt the night before of a silver winged chariot, and on its sides was the figure 1896. In her dream, two brides came to meet the chariot as it traveled toward the haunted road.

She asked him to find the phantom when he returned to Antigua and to tell her that her days of wondering would end in 14 years – 1896. He would receive a reward, she said, if he would be in Parham 30 minutes before the end of the 14 years, as the moon set and the sun rose. The ghost would come and show him where the treasure was hidden.

J.F. went back to Antigua, but 1896 seemed far off and he thought little of the prediction. Then one night in 1895, he saw a light shining outside and went to investigate. It was a lantern surrounded by insects.

He felt a touch, swung around, and to his horror, saw the ghost, the beautiful woman he had seen 29 years earlier.

The light became a ball of fire. The figure spoke. “You see the mysterious figures in their proper order – 1896 – the date when my harassed soul will find rest.”

With jeweled fingers, she pointed to Parham Lodge, and then to Crabbs. “When brides those houses occupy, God’s pardon from my crime is nigh”, she said.

J.F. never knew how he reached home that night. He only knew he was deeply shaken.

He had no inclination to seek the hidden treasure. He would leave that for others, to try to guess the magic moment in the following year, when the ghost would appear for the last time on the Parham road.